好英语网安倍曾承诺帮助日本女性“发光”，她们仍在等待
TOKYO — This was supposed to be the era when Japan finally stepped beyond its centuries of patriarchal dominance and empowered women in the workplace. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the country’s prosperity depended on it, and promised policies to help women “shine.” He even gave the push a name: womenomics.
东京——这本该是日本终于走出持续数世纪的父权统治、在工作场所赋予女性权力的时代。安倍晋三(Shinzo Abe)首相曾说日本的繁荣依赖于此，并承诺出台政策帮助女性“发光”。他甚至用这样一个词来形容自己的努力：“女性经济学”(womenomics)。
Sayaka Hojo has yet to see the fruits of those pledges.
北条纱耶香（Sayaka Hojo，音）还没有看到这些承诺的成果。
周三东京的通勤者。尽管在安倍晋三执政期间，日本劳动力中的女性比例达到了历史最高水平，但超过一半的女性从事的是兼职或合同工。
Ms. Hojo, 32, the mother of a young daughter, has had three different employers during the nearly eight-year tenure of Mr. Abe, who said late last month that he was leaving office. In all of those jobs, Ms. Hojo worked mostly with women but was overseen by men — a still-common situation in Japan that belies Mr. Abe’s promise to significantly increase the share of women in management roles.
32岁的北条有一个年幼的女儿，在上月底宣布将卸任的安倍的近八年任期内，她换过三次雇主。在所有这些工作中，北条大多与女性共事，但被男性管理——这仍是日本的常态，与安倍要大幅提高管理岗位女性比例的承诺不符。
And Ms. Hojo, like many women in Japan, cannot accept a full-time job even after Mr. Abe pushed through a law intended to ease Japan’s brutal work culture. Because she shoulders the bulk of housework and child care, the hours at work would be too demanding.
和日本许多女性一样，北条无法接受全职工作，哪怕安倍推动通过了一项旨在缓解日本残酷的职场文化的法律。因为承担了大部分家务和照顾孩子的责任，那样的工作时间对她要求太过苛刻了。
“If there are talented, competent women who get married or have children, their career paths are derailed,” Ms. Hojo said. Of Mr. Abe’s flowery rhetoric about elevating women, she added: “I saw a huge gap between what he said and what was really happening.”
“有才华、有能力的女性如果结婚生子，她们的职业之路就会脱轨，”北条说。在谈到安倍关于提升女性地位的华丽修辞时，她补充说：“在他的话与实际情况之间，我看到了巨大差距。”
As Mr. Abe ends a record-long run in office, one of the more consequential entries on his list of unfulfilled aspirations is his goal of promoting women in the work force to address dire demographic problems like a declining and aging population.
随着安倍创纪录的漫长任期的终结，他未实现的抱负清单中一个相对较重要的目标，就是推动女性进入劳动力大军，以解决人口减少和老龄化等严峻问题。
None of the three lawmakers vying to replace him as Japan moves toward picking a new leader on Monday — including the front-runner, Yoshihide Suga, Mr. Abe’s chief cabinet secretary — are seen as likely to drastically change the environment for women, even as the picture remains grim.
在周一日本选举新领导人的过程中，三位竞争接替他的议员——包括领跑的安倍内阁官房长官菅义伟——都被认为不太可能彻底改变女性的处境，尽管形势依然严峻。（菅义伟在周一的自民党总裁选举中胜出——编注。）
Women hold less than 12 percent of corporate management jobs, well below Mr. Abe’s original 30 percent target, according to government data. And while the percentage of women in the work force rose during his prime ministership to an all-time high of 52.2 percent, more than half of them work in part-time or contract jobs that offer few benefits or paths to career advancement. Those workers have also suffered the most during the pandemic, losing income and working hours.
政府数据显示，女性在企业管理岗位中的比例不到12%，远低于安倍最初设定的30%的目标。在他担任首相期间，女性占劳动力比例虽然上升到历史最高的52.2%，但其中超过一半的女性从事的是兼职或合同工，这些工作几乎没有什么福利，也没有什么晋升途径。这类劳工在大流行期间遭受的打击也最大，失去了收入和工作时数。
Although many women are getting back into the work force, it’s often for “an odd job to put a little extra money into the household pocket,” said Nobuko Kobayashi, a partner at EY Japan, a consulting firm.
尽管许多女性开始重返工作岗位，但总是做“给家庭赚点外快的零工”，咨询公司安永日本(EY Japan)的合伙人小林畅子(Nobuko Kobayashi)说。
“So do we really call that womenomics in the sense that it’s augmenting the status of women in society?” she said. “No.”
“那么，我们能管这叫提高了女性社会地位的女性经济学吗？”她说。“并不能。”
Mr. Abe did shift the tone from previous leaders who had declared that a woman’s rightful place was in the home. And in one area, at least, women have made noticeable progress: By 2020, more than a third of hires for management-track jobs in central government ministries were women, up from less than a quarter in 2012.
相较于曾宣称女性的正确位置在家庭的前任领导人，安倍的确转变了语气。至少在一个领域，女性已经取得了显著的进步：到2020年，中央政府部门管理类职位的招聘中，女性占了超过三分之一，而在2012年这一比例还不到四分之一。
But many women still struggle to find adequate child care, even after Mr. Abe promised to eliminate waiting lists for public day-care centers by 2020. As of earlier this year, there were still nearly 12,500 children on waiting lists, even as the number of babies born in Japan fell to the lowest level in close to a century and a half.
不过，即便安倍承诺要在2020年消除公立日托中心的等候名单，许多女性仍难以找到合适的儿童看护服务。截至今年年初，仍有近1.25万名儿童在等候名单中，尽管日本新生儿数量已经降到了近一个半世纪以来的最低水平。
Among single mothers, the poverty rate has worsened under Mr. Abe. More than half fell below the poverty line in 2019, up from nearly 45 percent when Mr. Abe became prime minister in 2012, according to the Japan Institute for Labor Policy and Training, a think tank.
在安倍任期内，单身母亲的贫困率有所恶化。根据智库日本劳动政策及培训研究所(Japan Institute for Labor Policy and Training)的数据，2019年，超过一半的单身母亲生活在贫困线以下，而安倍在2012年成为首相时，这一比例为近45%。
To many women, Mr. Abe showed his true colors on two cultural issues: his repeated demurral on a growing push to change a 19th-century law dictating that married couples use one surname, and his emphasis on the “importance of the male succession” as a majority of the Japanese public supports allowing a woman to become emperor.
在许多女性看来，安倍在两个文化议题上露出了真面目：对修改已婚夫妇只能使用一个姓氏的19世纪法律的呼声，他一再表示反对，还有在大多数日本公众支持允许女性成为天皇的情况下，他对男性继承重要性的强调。
“Even though we knew he was from a conservative background, he was pretending he was supporting women’s active participation in society,” said Tomomi Yamaguchi, a professor of anthropology and sociology at Montana State University who researches Japanese feminism.
“我们都知道他背景保守，但他还是装作支持女性积极参与社会活动，”蒙大拿州立大学(Montana State University)研究日本女性主义的人类学和社会学教授山口智美(Tomomi Yamaguchi)说。
Women’s halting progress in society is in part a product of their deep-rooted underrepresentation in politics.
女性在社会中止步不前，部分原因是她们在政治上代表性不足的问题根深蒂固。
All three of the lawmakers vying to replace Mr. Abe as prime minister are men. Two women initially indicated they would be interested in running, but quickly dropped out after failing to gain support.
三位力图取代安倍出任首相的议员都是男性。有两位女性起初表示有意参选，但在未能获得支持后很快退出。
Women represent less than 15 percent of lawmakers in Japan’s Parliament. Of the 102 current parliamentary members who are women, fewer than half are in Mr. Abe’s conservative Liberal Democratic Party. Just three members of his cabinet of 20 are women.
在日本的议会中，女性议员的比例不到15%。在目前的102名女性议会成员中，不到一半来自安倍所在的保守派政党自民党。而在他的20名内阁成员中，只有三位女性。
“The main reason for Japan’s shockingly low numbers of women politicians is the L.D.P.’s failure to recruit and nominate women,” said Gill Steel, a professor of political science at Doshisha University in Kyoto and the editor of “Beyond the Gender Gap in Japan.”
“日本女性政客数量低得惊人的主要原因，是自民党未能招募和提名女性，”京都同志社大学(Doshisha University)政治学教授、《日本性别差异之外》(Beyond the Gender Gap in Japan)一书编辑吉尔·斯蒂尔(Gill Steel)表示。
“Abe presided over this situation and did nothing to change it,” she said.
“是安倍主导了这一局面，他也没有做出任何改变，”她说。
A group of 10 Liberal Democratic women in Parliament wrote a letter to the three candidates for prime minister urging them to support a minimum threshold of 30 percent female representation among national lawmakers.
议会中的10名自民党女议员向三位首相候选人致信，敦促他们支持让全国议员中女性代表比例至少达到30%的门槛。
Yayoi Kimura, a Liberal Democratic member of the House of Representatives who endorsed the letter, said that when she co-sponsored a bill to provide a tax break for unmarried parents, some of her male colleagues argued that most single mothers were either mistresses of rich men or hyperambitious career women who did not need government assistance.
支持这封信的众议院自民党议员木村弥生(Yayoi Kimura)说，当她与人共同发起一项为未婚父母提供减税的法案时，她的一些男性同事认为，大多数单身母亲要么是富人的情妇，要么是野心勃勃的女强人，不需要政府援助。
The measure passed, Ms. Kimura said, because women of all parties banded together to vote it through.
木村说，这项法案得以通过，是因为各党派的女性联合起来投票支持。
Some women hope that Mr. Suga would be slightly more in tune with their needs. Unlike most Japanese lawmakers, he does not come from a wealthy political family. In Yokohama, where he served on the City Council, he worked to reduce long day-care waiting lists.
一些女性希望菅义伟能稍做调整，适应她们的需求。与大多数日本议员不同，他并非来自富裕的政治家庭。他在横滨市议会任职期间，曾致力于解决日托轮候名单过长的情况。
Still, like so many other men in Japanese politics, Mr. Suga has made public comments that reflect traditional views about a woman’s role in society.
不过，同日本政界许多其他男性一样，菅义伟的公开言论反映了对女性社会角色的传统看法。
When a popular actor, Masaharu Fukuyama, married the actress Kazue Fukiishi in 2015, Mr. Suga predicted on television that their marriage would prompt “Mama-sans” around the country to “want to have babies alongside the new couple and contribute to the country.”
2015年，当红演员福山雅治(Masaharu Fukuyama)与女演员吹石一惠(Kazue Fukiishi)结婚时，菅义伟在电视上预言，他们的婚姻会促使日本各地的“妈妈”们“想和这对新人一起生下孩子，为国家做出贡献”。
And when Mr. Suga and the other two men running for prime minister, Fumio Kishida and Shigeru Ishiba, were asked in a debate what kinds of fathers they were, all acknowledged having rarely spent time at home while their children were growing up. Mr. Kishida was roundly attacked on Twitter recently after posting a picture of his wife serving him dinner while she stood in the doorway looking more like a waitress than a partner.
在一次辩论中，当菅义伟和另外两名竞选首相的男性岸田文雄(Fumio Kishida)和石破茂(Shigeru Ishiba)被问及自己是哪种父亲时，他们都承认，孩子成长过程中，他们很少在家。岸田文雄最近在Twitter上发布了一张妻子为他上菜的照片，遭到了猛烈抨击。照片中，岸田夫人站在门口，看上去更像服务员，而不是他的伴侣。
Megumi Mikawa, 40, said she did not see how her life had improved under the Abe administration. In July, she quit her clerical job in Nishinomiya, a city in western Japan, because she was unable to perform her duties from home during the pandemic.
40岁的三川惠（Megumi Mikawa，音）说，在安倍政府领导下，她看不出自己的生活有任何改善。今年7月，她辞去了在日本西部城市西宫的文员工作，因为在大流行期间，她无法在家办公。
Because she left the part-time job voluntarily, she was not eligible for unemployment benefits or government subsidies for parents who took time off to care for children while schools were closed because of the coronavirus.
由于是自愿离开这份兼职工作，她没有资格获得失业救济金，在学校因新冠病毒而关闭期间，也没有资格获得政府给请假照顾孩子的父母发放的补贴。
In a Zoom interview from her kitchen on a day when her 7-year-old daughter’s school was closed because of an approaching typhoon, Ms. Mikawa, whose husband is currently posted in Tokyo, said that simply increasing the number of women in Parliament could foster more women-friendly policies.
三川惠的丈夫目前在东京工作，一天，她七岁的女儿的学校因为台风即将来临而停课，她在厨房通过接受Zoom电视台采访时说，只要增加议会中的女性人数，就可以推行更多有利于女性的政策。
“The fundamental ideas of the country are controlled by men,” she said. “That’s why we don’t have any policies to really cater to ordinary people.”
“这个国家的基本观念是由男人控制的，”她说。“所以我们没有任何政策来真正满足普通人的需求。”
Ms. Hojo, the accountant, said she viewed her destiny as extending beyond motherhood. “I still have ambition,” she said.
身为会计的北条说，她认为自己的命运不应止步于为人母。“我仍然有抱负，”她说。
When she returned to work after staying home with her newborn daughter for two years, she took a part-time job at the medical clinic where she had previously worked full time. Since her husband worked 100-hour weeks as a delivery service driver, she accepted a reduction in her hours because the clinic required staff members to stay until 8 p.m. — too late to pick up her daughter from day care.
在家照顾新生的女儿两年后，她回到工作岗位，在之前全职工作的诊所做兼职。由于她的丈夫是送货司机，每周工作100个小时，她接受了工作时间的减少，因为诊所要求工作人员待到晚上8点——这个时间太晚了，无法去托儿所接女儿。
She said she wanted the next prime minister to use his bully pulpit to promote gender equality.
她说，她希望下一任首相能够利用自己的最高讲坛来促进性别平等。
Invoking an idiomatic expression — nagai mono ni makareru — on people’s tendency to follow authority, she said: “If the government, which is in the strongest position, demonstrates” the importance of giving women more opportunities in the workplace, “private companies would follow suit.”
她引用一个成语——“胳膊拧不过大腿(長いものに巻かれる)”——意思是人们有服从权威的倾向。在工作场所给女性更多机会的重要性“如果被处于最强势地位的政府所证明”，她说，“那么私营公司就会效仿。”